Q1. What types of decisions must Chad Thomas make daily for his company’s operations to run effectively? Over the long run?
Tactical decisions or short term decisions have short term impact and consequence to the organization:
1) Layout of the manufacturing process and equipment configurations- the importance of the relayout is to reduce the setup time
2) Resource allocation-daily raw materials allocation and replenishment
3) Management of resource- manpower allocation and staff allocated for each process.
4) Job scheduling ? production scheduling on how much to produce
5) Shipment scheduling ? planning and organizing the number of shipments to end customer
6) Inventories management
Strategic decisions or long term decisions have long term impact and consequence to the organization:
1) Develop forecasting methodology and techniques to understand the demands
2) If making the “Make” or “Buy” decision, it is important as the decision will impact on the relayout of the equipment, production
3) Reorganization of people- required to retrain people and check on their capabilities to perform the work (Cross training and flexible workforce are critical components in the organization to meet the complexity of the products)
4) “Outsourcing” or “Buy” decision- when volume is increasing at a constant rate, outsource non core activities to others.

Q2. How did the sales and marketing affect operations when they began to sell standard pieces to retail outlets?
Firstly, there is a need to focus on the company competitive dimensions before embarking on the decisions. In this aspect, the Competitive capabilities are the Cost, Quality, Time, and Flexibility dimensions that a process or value chain actually processes and is ...

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